Once it appeared, this room had been a place where knights could come and pore over the records of their own past. There was still a wall of shelves containing specially preserved scrolls. The rest of the room, though, had been taken over by the elf and his work.
“There. Do you see it?”
Kaz followed Argaen Ravenshadow’s gaze. They stood on the upper floor of the library at a window that faced into the center of Vingaard.
“I see it. That’s where the Grand Master lives and commands from, isn’t it?” Over five years might have gone by, but Kaz doubted his memory was that hazy.
“It is where he now sits in a world of distorted visions, commanding an ever-decreasing band of men, each as mad as himself, and unconsciously protecting what I suspect is responsible for the insanity and the sorcery you have witnessed so far.”
The elf stepped abruptly away from the window. Kaz remained for the moment, staring out at the circle of torches now surrounding the sanctum of the Grand Master. Darius, who, along with Tesela, had been watching from another window, followed the elf. “What is it? What has the power to turn the Grand Master himself from the path of Paladine?”
Argaen walked over to the single table in the room, where a number of unusual and malevolent objects rested. He picked up the most ordinary, a stick that curled inward at the end, and seemed to contemplate it. He seemed to have forgotten the knight’s question. “Did Sardal mention why I was here, minotaur?”
“With all that’s happened, I can’t really say. I don’t think so.” Kaz looked at the objects on the table. “I’m not sure I want to know.”
“You may not want to, but you have to now that you are here.” The elf held up the stick, still examining it. “Harmless-looking?”
“Since you ask, I doubt it.”
“You would be correct. I will not go into detail, but I can tell you that this tiny item was used by some to distort the weather during the war.”
‘That thing?” Kaz recalled the unpredictable weather during his early days in the war and the terrible storm traps created by the dark mages in the final months. He recalled the one great storm that had preceded the darkness, in which the dragons of Takhisis and the monsters of Galan Dracos had passed the tattered remains of a vast Solamnic campsite. The knights themselves had been in full retreat, in what some termed the worst disaster in the history of the orders.
“Galan Dracos either created or stole the spell to make this. It is far stronger than any I have heard of. Fortunately-or perhaps unfortunately-the only one in existence-this one-was sealed inside one of three vaults.”
The elf was playing games, Kaz knew. It was a trait of the elder race.
“Tell us of these vaults, Argaen Ravenshadow, and what they have to do with Galan Dracos.”
The bell tolled again, but the elf ignored it. “The citadel of Galan Dracos, the master renegade who planned to turn even those sorcerers who followed the dark path into slaves of his ambition, was originally situated on the side of a peak in the mountains between Hylo and Solamnia.”
“Really?” Delbin, who had remained unusually silent, perked up. “There’re ruins of a sorcerer’s castle in Hylo? Can we go there sometime? I wonder if any of my family’s been there. I should write this down!” The kender reached into his pouch for his book and instead pulled out a tiny figurine. “Where do you suppose this came from? Isn’t it neat?”
Delbin seemed to shrivel up before Argaen’s burning eyes. Argaen took a deep breath, and for the first time, he seemed to notice the effect his tirade had had on the others. The elf put a hand to his head and frowned.
“My… apologies to all of you! For over three years have I labored here, and while three years is not much in the physical life of an elf, it can be an eternity in other ways. Over three years of struggling to maintain sanity while those around me, already mad, have sunk ever deeper. Over three years of knowing how close the possible solution lay but being unable to do anything about it. Each day I wait for the madness to overwhelm me while I seek in vain for some way to reach the vaults and solve the secrets of the locks. Each day…” Ravenshadow closed his eyes.
“I was telling you of the citadel of Calan Dracos,” he suddenly commented. His eyes opened, and the pain that had racked his visage was no more. The mask was back in place.
Tesela walked over to the elf and put a hand on his shoulder. “You don’t have to tell us now. Perhaps later, and perhaps you might let me see what I can do.”
“You can do nothing. This is a spell, not a wound. Trust me. I know.”
“Are you sure-”
He waved her away. “I am. Now if you will let me continue…” The elf purposefully stepped away from her and nearer to Kaz. “As I was saying-”
“I’m familiar with the citadel,” Kaz replied quietly. Images still overwhelmed him. “I was there. I rode a dragon, a fighter after my own soul. His name was Bolt. With a Dragonlance, we, along with a few others, followed Huma of the Lance to the battlements. At first we all feared we would never find the place-there was a spell of invisibility or something on it-but Dracos was betrayed by the Black Robe sorcerers, who knew that they, too, would be slaves if he triumphed.”
Ravenshadow’s eyes lit up, but he said nothing, merely indicating with a gesture that the minotaur should go on.
Kaz grimaced as the memories dredged up unwanted emotions. “Huma was the only one to succeed in penetrating the lair of Dracos, and it was he who fought the mage by himself, somehow winning out and shattering the renegade’s schemes.” He smiled grimly. “It seems Dracos intended even to betray his mistress, Takhisis. When he realized, though, that he’d lost, he destroyed himself rather than face the wrath of the goddess.”
“And the stronghold?” Argaen asked.
“Without the power of Dracos to support it,” Kaz concluded to a suddenly intent elf, “the citadel could not maintain its hold on the side of the mountain. It crashed to the earth, and that was the end of it.”
“And there I must take over, although your story fills some gaps and is quite entertaining in itself.” Argaen picked up another object, which looked like a polished black rock. He began tossing it from one hand to the other. “You see, that was
“Dracos deserves no tributes… only curses.”
Argaen gave Kaz a quick look. “As you say, minotaur. Be that as it may, not only did his citadel remain partially intact, but countless items he had either gathered from those under his control or had devised himself survived as well. They were ignored at first as the Knights of Solamnia began the process of systematically crushing the now leaderless armies of the Dragonqueen. Only when news filtered into Vingaard that mysterious happenings were taking place near the site of the ruins did the Grand Master realize the danger.”
“The summoning,” Darius interrupted. “Five years ago the Grand Master requested aid from the southern keeps. He wanted them to help maintain the peace while those from Vingaard and some of the other northern keeps worked on some important project! Dracos’s stronghold!”
“The stronghold,” Ravenshadow concurred. He continued to toss the smooth rock back and forth. “Lord Oswal had men scour the area. More than fourscore clerics of Paladine aided in the search, utilizing their lord’s power to seek out small yet exceedingly deadly instruments that had been buried. They gathered fragments of the more powerful items that had been shattered. I do not doubt that, as thorough as they were, a few pieces escaped their notice.”
Kaz glanced at Delbin, whose eyes were bright. The thought of the kender returning to his people and telling them about the possible treasures in the ruins made the minotaur shiver. Dark sorcery in the hands of
“When the clerics were satisfied that they had done all they could, the gathered remnants of the relics were brought to Vingaard Keep under an armed guard so great in number that one would have thought the knights were
